


tether

by orphan_account



Category: The Killers (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 01:03:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13648167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After fifteen years, they got married in a little Vegas chapel. Tacky, and totally Brandon’s idea, it’s still the happiest day of his life—and yet, Brandon remembers the fear. If he looks close enough, which he doesn’t, too scared to, he’ll see it glinting in his eyes behind the glass. He’ll see a man afraid of himself, afraid of running away.He’s so afraid of running away.





	tether

**Author's Note:**

> where is all the bronnie on here?

Brandon has this fear.

It’s constant. It crawls up over his shoulder and startles him awake at night, damp and shivering in his sheets. It hits him when the dust has settled, when everything is going fine. It strikes him today, Valentine’s Day, as he braces his hand against the wall for balance and kicks off his shoes, Ronnie’s voice travelling through from the kitchen, asking if that’s him home.

Brandon blinks, turning where he stands. In his eyeline is a framed photograph across the hall; it’s new, from last October. After fifteen years, they got married in a little Vegas chapel. Tacky, and totally Brandon’s idea, it’s still the happiest day of his life—and yet, Brandon remembers the fear. If he looks close enough, which he doesn’t, too scared to, he’ll see it glinting in his eyes behind the glass. He’ll see a man afraid of himself, afraid of running away.

He’s so afraid of running away.

He fantasises about it sometimes. He slips from his covers in the middle of the night and leaves with nothing, everything too weighty of a reminder of what he’s trying to escape from. In this fantasy, he starts again—magically, he’s twenty-one again, and he never goes into that bar, never chokes back the shyness that’s plagued him his entire life to flirt back with the man with the pretty brown eyes. He has many lovers. A wife. Children. Faith. An early death. The possibilities are unending when he lets his mind wander.

“Who else would it be,” he says, cheeky and loud, tearing his gaze away from the photograph and going into the kitchen.

Inside, Ronnie is cooking. The card and chocolates that Brandon had left this morning before work have been opened and sit on the table where they huddle around to eat. Beside them is a small present and envelope, Brandon’s name written neatly across the front. Before he can get to it, Ronnie has abandoned whatever it is he has in the pot on the stove to cross the room and wrap Brandon up in a hug. “Happy Valentine’s Day, babe,” he says, pressing a kiss to his temple.

Brandon sighs, happy. He turns into his husband a little more, hiding his face in the crook of his neck. “Love you,” he says, muffled by the collar of Ronnie’s shirt. It’s hideous and floral, but it’s Ronnie, so Brandon loves it on him.

Nothing about Ronnie makes him want to run away. That’s never been the case. It’s Brandon’s shit and he’s trying to deal with it. He can’t say anything, though. No amount of acceptance and understanding of Brandon’s neuroticism that Ronnie has managed to harness over the last decade and a half would be enough from keeping him from getting the wrong idea. It’s not that he wants to leave, it’s that he’s _capable_ of it. He could run away, and Ronnie probably wouldn’t even hate him for it.

Then Ronnie slips his hand down Brandon’s back, gives his ass a smack. “I thought you said you’d be back earlier,” he says, but he’s grinning.

He’s so understanding. It makes Brandon want to peel off his skin and scream.

“I know, I know,” he says, waving a hand.

He steps away from Ronnie, towards the table. He picks up the envelope and opens it in a haste. By now, he’s used to some cheesy joke card for Valentine’s Day. He likes it, keeps them all in a box in his closet. His favourite is of a man and a woman on the front, edited with marker to don the moustaches he and Ronnie sported at the time. Sometimes, when he thinks about it, his mind already out the door, he goes to that box of mementos, opens it up and centres himself with the reminders of the love he so desperately yearned for as that little Mormon kid in Utah, so scared he’d never get his prince charming.

But he did. He does. He’s his husband now. The thought never passed his mind when they met, a different world back then. That’s what the card says—husband. _To my husband_. Brandon’s always wanted to be someone’s husband, to be that man in someone’s life, and now he is. It’s staring back at him everywhere he looks.

He sets the card down, smiling with crinkled eyes at where Ronnie’s back at the stove, giving the pot a stir.

“Go on,” Ronnie says from over his shoulder, “open it.” In a small box, beneath haphazard but sentimental wrapping, is a pair of cufflinks, emblemized with the state flag of Nevada. “I don’t know if the blue will go with everything, but it’s Nevada so...”

Brandon lets out a gulping laugh. _Yuk-yuk_ , _yuk-yuk_. “I love ‘em, Ron.” Brandon holds them tight in his palm, backs pressing into his skin, and walks over to the stove. He kisses the back of Ronnie’s shoulder and leaves without a word.

In their bedroom, Brandon sinks down onto the mattress, head in his hands. He stares at the carpet between his feet, bathed in a puddle of dwindling evening sunlight. He stays like this until he hears the tell-tale sound of Ronnie getting plates out of the cupboard, the clink and clang sending Brandon across the room, pulling off his clothes down to his briefs. He pulls on a soft grey jumper and pair of sweatpants, glad to be free of the starchy confines of his work clothes.

“God, I love it when you get all dressed up for me,” Ronnie jokes when he returns. He holds a bowl of grated cheese in one hand, pinching some up and sprinkling it over his own plate of pasta. “You havin’ some?”

Brandon pulls a face.

“I’ve just lost the Christmas weight,” he says, absentmindedly shoving a hand under his jumper, thumb running across the front of his stomach. Ronnie’s got his eyebrows raised at him. He pulls his hand back. “I’ve got to leave room for chocolate later, too, don’t I?”

Ronnie puts the bowl down, knowing there’s no point in arguing.

Dinner is nice, typically civil. They trade stories about their day before falling into a lull, comfortable in the silence that they once tried to fill. Brandon eats up easily, keeping his eyes on his plate but for the few occasions he ventures his gaze upwards, locking eyes with Ronnie almost instantly. He smiles around his fork; Ronnie’s eyes twinkle.

Afterwards, they watch _The Color of Money_ on Brandon’s request, a box of chocolates balanced on Ronnie’s thighs as Brandon tucks himself up beside him. He likes to be close. He likes to cuddle. If the position allows for it, he’ll have every limb he can wrapped around Ronnie. It’s a jealousy thing. Insecurity. The only thing that scares him more than himself running away is Ronnie leaving him, and that’s why he holds him tight, holds him down, holds him back. He’s selfish, but that’s nothing new, nothing Ronnie doesn’t know.

They don’t have sex after. Brandon thinks about it, but he’s too tired to make an effort. They both fall asleep quickly anyway.

The next morning, on Ronnie’s birthday, Brandon stirs early, sheets twisted between them both, bare skin showing here and there. He feels fingertips trekking up his chest gently and opens his eyes, the room warm and bright around them. Dark eyes meet his gaze, fingers flirting up past his collarbone to the skin at the base of his neck, searching out the thrum of his pulse. The corner of Ronnie’s mouth tilts, grinning like a mad man.

“Happy birthday,” Brandon says, voice thick with sleep. He clears his throat. “Forty-two.”

“Gettin’ old,” he says back, still smiling.

Brandon closes his eyes again, feeling Ronnie move beside him. The mattress dips and a hand nudges at his up, encouraging him around. He goes, so easy, face towards the window. Ronnie’s mouth is warm on the bend of his neck, but his hand is cold where it settles across his stomach. “Do you mind if we…?” Ronnie says, lips leaving a line of kisses over his shoulder, teeth nipping the skin delicately. No sooner has Brandon nodded does Ronnie’s hand slip downwards, following the dusting of hair on Brandon’s stomach like a map. He closes a palm around his dick, palm firm and familiar, and Brandon lets out a shuddery sound, a gentle plea already escaping him wordlessly.

Ronnie rocks against him from behind, hard at the small of his back, and it sends a shiver down through his body. He’s hard. The hand around his dick tightens. Ronnie’s always been a bit of a tease.

The cool touch of the air dissipates into the heat coming from Ronnie’s body behind him, skin slick with a damp sweat already. Ronnie is talking, can’t stop, words like _love_ and _beautiful_ making it to Brandon’s ears, disjointed and sincere, accompanied by the pleasant scratch of beard. They get hotter, lower, _fuck_ and _tight_ coming out in a low rumble as Brandon feels fingers press against him from behind, wet, the room lying still as they push inside.

Like a butterfly, Brandon is trapped in Ronnie’s hands, holding firm but mindful of his wings. Brandon’s sweating, moisture gathering at the top of his lip, hair at the base of neck damp with it. He presses his face down into the pillow, wiping it away as Ronnie’s mouth moves slack against his skin, talking again, saying things Brandon doesn’t understand, doesn’t need to.

The fingers pull free of his body, and Brandon moans, chokes on a name,  _Ron_ , his hips thrusting forward into the loose fist around him. He feels the body behind him, Ronnie's breath hot on his neck, and then there's pressure, sweet, slow pressure, until Ronnie's inside of him, dick holding him open, exposed. His fists curl in the sheets.

They move together, rocking slow. Everything’s slow these days, and Brandon likes it. Likes the leisure of growing old with someone. When they were younger, everything was fast—decisions, fucking, living. Ronnie was in a band back then, and Brandon was some mop-top haired little groupie that got bored of the road pretty quickly. Ronnie gave it all up for him, Brandon remembers as Ronnie’s thigh slips between his, and he always says he doesn’t regret it. Brandon does, sometimes. _I shouldn’t have made you stay behind. I should’ve let you go_.

“Ron,” Brandon almost gargles, the movement of Ronnie’s hips fluid, pressing deep inside of him, setting his nerve-endings alight and tearing a little cry from his lips. “Ronnie.”

“Fuck,” Ronnie breathes. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. “Feels good.”

Brandon leans his head back towards Ronnie’s voice, the space between them gone, non-existent. He reaches an arm back, bent by the side of his face, and pushes a hand through Ronnie’s hair, not grabbing like he might’ve once done, but stroking, encouraging. His breath hitches and he pushes back, wanting it deeper, wanting it with more purpose until he’s jolting forward with every thrust, chocking on the words caught in his throat.

In a hot-white blur, he finishes first in Ronnie’s hand. He closes his eyes and there’s nothing but a blinding light behind his eyes. He shakes a little with it, body closing tight, muscles clenching all over his body, only faintly processing the rough cry Ronnie releases behind him as he comes.

Ronnie doesn’t pull out straightaway, keeping still, molding himself around Brandon’s back, circling his arms around him, wet hand on his hip. Everything is in soft focus, drowned out by Brandon’s heartbeat thundering in his ears as he catches his breath.

It’s been a while since they’ve done that, but Brandon supposes it’s a special occasion. He jumps into a shower, feeling dirty, and sits wet on top of Ronnie when he’s done, hands returning to his hair like it’s his favourite thing—and it might be.

“Was that my birthday present?” Ronnie asks, linking his fingers on the base of Brandon’s spine. “’M not complaining if it was.”

“’course not,” Brandon says. “I got somethin’ else.”

Something else is a trip to Mexico—two tickets, there and back, and four days in a fancy hotel just outside of Monterrey. They went there for the first time twelve years ago, driving down in Ronnie’s shitty old car and almost killing each other in the process. It’s how Brandon knew. He’d been in love with Ronnie for long before that, but the thought of forever struck him like a truck as he booted the bumper of Ronnie’s car, enraged for God only knew what reason.

In his box of mementos are some polaroid pictures from that trip. Some are up in frames, but some of the more intimate ones stay in the box. Dressed and perched on the end of the bed, he flicks through them, flushing red at the sight of himself naked and laughing quietly at the horrific state of his moustache. His favourite, nestled at the bottom of the pile, is one of them both, sandwiched together, his lips pressed tightly to Ronnie’s cheek. Only a sliver of the mountain peak behind them is visible, the angle way off.

“We’ll recreate that,” Ronnie says, appearing at the threshold of their bedroom, towel slung low on his hips. “But I ain’t doin’ half as much hiking this time around, Flowers. I’ve not got the legs for it anymore.”

As Ronnie wanders across the room towards him, Brandon sets the pictures down to the side, shuffling to sit at the edge. He spreads his legs, letting Ronnie step between them, and leans forward, chin resting on the knot of Ronnie’s towel. Ronnie cups his face, thumbs brushing over his cheeks and cocks his head down at him, smiling sweet.

“You alright?” Ronnie asks.

Brandon hums, happy. The fear has dissipated for the time being, and everything is alright, and he’s not going anywhere.


End file.
